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Daniel Liebeskind's design was chosen. Previous Gothamist coverage.
Liebeskind Design Chosen for World Trade Center site
[Jake 11:40pm]: Liebeskind, Liebeskind Uber Alles!
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Liebeskind, deluded that with his signature fractured compositions he is a fountainhead of the zeitgeist and expressive of some social reality in contemporary life or the reality to come, yesterday was dealt a validating hand by the City of New York. I find it sad that "we" endorse a scheme that will monumentalize the events of 9/11 and preserve a memory of the dead in the image of a ruin. If this event (Liebeskind's award) expresses anything about contemporary New York citizenry, it expresses our acceptance of defeat at the hand of scoundrels, our perverted revelling in victimization and our self-depricating europhilia. Welcome to the future of NYC in which our crowning achievement is synonymous with our most disasterous moment preserved.
I don't agree with Matt's analysis- although Herbert Muchamp from the NYTimes definitely would. He refused to back down from his excoriation of the Liebeskind design earlier this week, writing "The Libeskind design is a dramatic piece of expressionist architecture that in its original form went far toward supplanting the need for an additional memorial to the victims of 9/11. The reduction of usable space in the "bathtub" to a fraction of its original size must inevitably compromise the aesthetic strength for which this plan was chosen. That design's explicit equation of aesthetic with moral and indeed spiritual value is now open to serious question. Whatever one makes of the original design's heavily loaded symbolism — to my mind the meanings became more disturbing with each viewing — the design's symbolic heart no longer exists."
For my part, I think the Liebeskind plan is a good balance between the city's need for striking new architecture downtown and the needs of the families and the country to have a national memorial at the site. I mean, what else could we do? My opinion might be based in pragmatism, but that's what urban design is all about. Word up.